Niun likewise was deeply sedated, and knew nothing of being moved, settled into yet another bed, a helplessness that would have deeply shamed the mri.
There would be no more drugs. Duncan read carefully the instructions that were clipped to the automeds, and found that medics had provided for such drugs, that they were to be found in lab storage, sufficient, the instructions said, for prolonged sedation. There were other things, meant to assist him in maintaining the mri. With two regul ships in the system and the likelihood of trouble, surely, Duncan thought, it was irresponsible to ignore those precautions, at least before jump; but when he touched the mri and felt how thin and weak they had become, he could not bring himself to do it.
They were days from jump, days more of sedation, so that the mri could ride through that condition which flesh and living systems found terrifying, sealed in their automeds, limbs unexercised, muscles further deteriorating.
It was only common sense, those few days more of precaution; those who had set him in control of the mri had reckoned that these certain precautions would apply.
But those who had laid the plans did not know the mri, who, confined, would simply do what all mri captives had done, whether or not they knew their jailer and die, killing if they could. Disabled, with their inherent loathing for medical help, they would surely make the same choice.
Duncan himself had understood from the beginning; it was on his conscience that he had never made it clear to Stavros or to others. He could not restrain the mri without killing them; and with the dusei aboard it was not likely that he could restrain them at all.
There was only one reason that would apply with the mri, amid all the powers, regul and human, that converged upon them, one thing with which the mri could not argue.
He made a final check of both mri, found them breathing easily now, and went topside, settling again into the command post.
He activated navigation storage and coded in a number: zero zero one.
Fox swung into a new orientation, her sensors locking on Arain, analyzing, comparing with data that flashed onto her screens. Lines of graphs converged, merged, flashed excited recognition.
CHAPTER Seven
NIUN WAKENED, as at so many other wakings, a great lethargy on him. His eyes rested first upon Duncan, sitting as he had so often, patiently waiting by the side of his cot. Niun grew confused, disturbed at a vague memory.
“I thought,” he said to Duncan, “that you had gone.”
Duncan reached forth a hand, laid it on his arm. Niun tried simply to move his fingers, and that effort was beyond his strength. “Are you awake?” Duncan asked of him. “Niun, wake up.”
He tried, earnestly, knowing that he was safe to do so if it were Duncan asking him; but the membrane half-closed over his eyes, hazing everything, making focus too difficult. The dark began to come back over him, and that was easier and more comfortable. He felt a touch on his mane, a mother’s touch none other would touch him so; but the fingers that touched his face then were calloused. It remained something to perplex him, and hold him close to waking.
“Drink,” he was told, a voice that he trusted. He felt himself lifted Duncan’s arm: he remembered. A vessel’s plastic rim touched his lips. He drank, found cool water, swallowed several times. It slid to his stomach and lay there uneasily.
Duncan took the vessel away, let him back on raised cushions that did not let him sink back into his former peace, and the elevation of his head dizzied him for a moment. Niun began to be sure that he was meant to wake in this terrible place, that there was no refuge. In his nostrils, unpleasant on the hot, heavy air, was the scent of food.
He could move his limbs. He found this a wonder. He tried to do so, began to absorb sensation again, and past and present finally merged in his mind.
He remembered fire and dark and a regul who he thought had killed him.